Hi everyone, sorry but I'm new to this and could really do with some advice, although I'm really not sure where to start.

For the past year I have been in a relationship with a male colleague. This relationship has been kept secret from work colleagues, but we obviously couldn't hide the chemistry we had and this was the cause of much office gossip and speculation. All aimed towards me I might add as no one has ever passed any suggestive or sarcastic comments to him.
So much has happened over the past year, but I will try to summarise as best I can.

I first met this man at work around 11 years ago, i didn't really know him that well and around 7 years ago he began working from a different location so I didn't see him again until I worked on secondment within the same unit. This was July 2015 and whilst working closely with him I began to have feelings for him. These feeling were primarily as a friend, as I was aware he was living in an abusive relationship whereby he had stayed because of their son. He also had no family nearby and didn't have any friends and I thought he could really benefit from having a good friend and someone he could talk to and confide in if need be. At first he was really quite hostile towards me, although he appeared to love all the attention that I gave him. Eventually I fell out with him because I felt I was banging my head against a brick wall and told him not to speak to me anymore unless it was regarding work related matters. After a few days he changed tactic and kind of apologised for his behaviour towards me. This is when it all began to go horribly wrong and he began sending suggestive emails to my private email address. At first I enjoyed the flirty banter and I began to want him. I guess looking back I was feeling quite lonely and vulnerable, as for the past 8 years I have been a single parent to my daughter and devoted all my time to her and work and not engaged in any kind of romantic relationship. It got as though I couldn't really understand what he wanted from me as the emails never made much sense and the more I showed interest the more he appeared to be toying with me.

Anyway, as time moved on we ended up getting together and began a sexual relationship. We only live a few streets from each other and within a short time he was at my house every night. He told me that his partner was more like a sister and suffers from various mental illnesses, they've had separate bedrooms for years and she's had numerous affairs however, he stayed with her to ensure that their son was well looked after as she was incapable of bringing him up on her own (son is now 16 I might add). As time went on I told him that I couldn't keep being the other woman and having him keep sneak to my house once everyone at his house had gone to bed. He assured me that I wasn't the 'other woman' as he and the mother of his son were not a couple however, she didn't know about me for a long time and still no one at work knows of our situation and I have never met his family or son for that matter! As time passed I broke it off with him several times as he could never understand that him living with another woman bothered me. He always came crawling back and managed to talk me round and promise me the earth. She eventually got to know of me as he was never home throughout the night. Nothing much to say really other than her reaction was not one of a woman who wasn't bothered! She agreed to let him buy her out of the house and moved out with another of her boyfriends. She never signed all the papers re: the house and moved back in whilst he was at work. He then asked if he could live with me and with resentment I said yes. This was at the beginning of Aug this year and I told him to keep away from her, the house and their trouble causing son until the house was in the process of being sorted. He agreed and although things were rocky we made the best of it. After 3 weeks we were at work one Thursday and had a row about me talking to another colleague for an hour ( he was jealous ) and then he went missing for over 3 hours. In this time our manager rang for him and told me she had agreed his 3 weeks holiday! I was devastated...it felt like my heart had been ripped out.

When he eventually came back to work I confronted him and he told me he had been back to the house and he was moving back in.......moving back for his son...not for her!! I asked him for my keys back and made my way home which took me 3 hours ( we were car sharing that day and in his car ). I got home, packed his stuff and I've been off work with stress ever since! Straight away he began texting, ringing and emailing expressing how he wanted to talk and explain. Eventually I was broken down and because of my love for him I let him back in. He again left and moved back in with me, she threatened to get me the sack from work, was stalking me on Facebook and even made threats towards my 8 year old daughter.....I eventually had to involve the police. Since the end of Aug he has been living with me and promised me that he has made no contact with her or his son. He claims to have tried to get the house sold through a solicitor, but she has refused to go and there is nothing he can do until his son is 18. I know she is playing him and making it difficult for us to be together, but he can never see how manipulating she is and he blames me for not understanding. As Christmas has been approaching he began to get really withdrawn and a little moody. He has rarely spoken to me, he claims to not have been sleeping and he hasn't been eating the same. I kept asking what was wrong, but he just shut me out and I've had this really bad feeling for weeks and really bad nightmares involving him and her. I've tried not to be paranoid and I've tried to rebuild the trust, but I feel broken and I don't trust him as far as I could throw him as he never talks to me! Last Saturday he was again moody and even being funny towards my little girl who loves him. He was quiet at my mums and barely spoke to me all day. I kept asking what was wrong but he never answered so I thought it best I be quiet and that's how it went until around 8.30pm when me and my daughter went grocery shopping. I asked him if he wanted anything and he said no. We returned at 10.30 to find he had moved out and posted the keys through my letterbox. He'd left a note saying "Sorry, I've taken the hint and so I've jumped before I am pushed. Apols, I've posted the keys". WTF?? Since then no phone call, no text, email nothing!! No explanation, no thanks, but goodbye.....nothing!! I haven't contacted him and have no idea where he is, but his has absolutely broken me again and I simply don't know what to do or what to think.

Can anyone shed some light please?? Is this his final goodbye or is he not wanting to burn his bridge just yet??
Sorry for it being so long winded.

Well whether it is or not, it certainly should be. This person doesn't appear to have ever cared for you that much - it seems that from his perspective you offered at first a welcome ego boost with your attention, then an easy affair, then a place to live.

He is treacherous and utterly untrustworthy, and also weak and self-serving. He doesn't appear to have treated you well at any point in what has been a rather short relationship. His effect on your life has been totally negative. To be honest I would say you would be mad to have anything to do with him again.

You must have had some issues with confidence and self-esteem to have accepted a man like this in the first place, so it would definitely be worth while thinking about those things before starting a new relationship. If your resources permit, you could spend some time talking to a counsellor, perhaps at Relate, to help you avoid falling for someone like this again.

These mountains that you are carrying, you were only supposed to climb.

Initially I`m thinking you are probably going to start coming across as one of those girls with an enormous heart but not necessarily specifically for their date. "Initially quite hostile" should keep you on the back foot for longer than just the short term. Do n`t forget, it is only he that is claiming that his spouse had been abusive, and most guys that positively beat up their partners make the same nature of claim. They are very often believed, even on occasion by the courts. First off, ask him for her contact details in order that you can sound out his claim. See exactly what is his reaction to that. Were they her affairs, or his affairs, have you got anything to go on besides his word combinations? Big question, how likely is it really that if she were entirely to blame as he seems to claim, and if she were being so abusive, that by now he would n`t have found it necessary to tell her that he had found a friend in you, I mean well before her finding out? He has needed you, yes, loved you, unlikely, and can you honestly say that you know for certain what the circumstances between them really are in that house. The vast majority of men that primarily only need cannot be trusted with a balanced perspective. Such high risk relationships are not worth their while.

I think in your heart of hearts you already know it's over, having an affair with a married man is always going to be high risk, it's easy to hook a man you fancy, just smile show some cleavage and leg and most men are prey to a seductress. We all will lie to cover our tracks but once his wife finds out he gets pulled in two directions, his wife being unfaithful is likely another lie as is the abuse story. At the end of the day he has gone back to her, that happens in the majority of affairs and the mistress gets dumped.
All you can do now is pick yourself up and make a New Years resolution - I'm not going to steal another woman's husband, I'm going to stay away from married men.

Hi all and thanks for your replies. Snail, what you said really struck a cord and in my head I think you're right and the relationship should be over. However, my heart still loves, cares and misses him, though I think I lot of how I feel was possibly born from my from feeling sorry for him and wanting to help him. I think you are also right in me having to seriously look to myself as to why I attract myself to these kind of people and address my own self asteem.

Just to clarify he isn't married and I do know for a fact that they have slept in separate rooms for years. He claims he can remember the last time they had sex, which was 2011, but I obviously only have his word on that one. I also never instigated a relationship....I merely only offered friendship, things just progressed on his terms. I have never chased after a married man and really believed that they were only together for the sake of their son, who is no longer a small child I might add. She has told me herself that they haven't had a relationship in years and she has always been the one to stray. However, although they're not married they are tied via the house and he claims he can't afford to live elsewhere and she has refused to go even though he gave her 7 grand in the summer to move out, he would give her the rest when she signed her share of the house over.

Whatever their situation, it is all really confusing to me as I left my daughter's father when she was only days old because I knew we could no longer be together and I still loved him enough to let him go. I've struggled to work and provide a roof over her head for the past 8 years and this is the first relationship I have entered into during all that time. Definitely no flashing of legs or cleavage involved.

What I struggle to comprehend is how he can just up and leave without any explanation......and you're right again Snail, he is obviously a coward. The crappy note he left only pointed to that he had gone because he had taken the hint at that's what I wanted???? Why didn't he just have the backbone to ask? I've still haven't heard from him, but I get the gut wrenching feeling that at some point he may be back and I feel so beat up by it all that I'm not sure I have the strength or heart to turn him away. He always bleats on about his son (16) being vulnerable and needing him because his mother is so useless, but both she and the son use this to tactic to hold on to him. I do think I realise that I'm on a hiding to nothing here, but how do I just suddenly stop caring?

You don't have to stop caring, but you do have to stop listening to him or putting up with his behaviour. He is an adult and can sort out his own problems. You need to look after yourself and your daughter, and this man is bad for you both.

These mountains that you are carrying, you were only supposed to climb.

I second Snail, but not for the same reason - I consider erotic seduction to be potentially outside and beyond the scope of a conscious decision, but one cannot steal another`s husband on the level that under no circumstances should one person be considered another`s property. Back to the issue at hand however, it is also quite possible that this gentlemen is being entirely honest. Definitely, put your daughter before all else, and they have to cope in a social environment of so much age prejudice that she could be made to suffer significantly over merely this disparity of years issue alone. You have likely been cautioning her off older men/boys all her life, you have likely created her highly anti older men/boys in relationships, even time and place friendships, perhaps equally so, so what you are about now is not likely easy on her. It may screw with her head very considerably. He should understand all this, ideally anyway, but it is n`t quite natural, certainly totally at odds with innate drive, for the guy to automatically visit such a place. You would almost definitely have to first shine a torch on it yourself, and if need be more than the single time. Do n`t forget her in this, your daughter. It`s very important! One question then, is this guy exceptional for his years, is he more like the same age as yourself? In a better world this would change almost everything, I did say almost.